The Whole Sky's Mine
by RedBrunja
Summary: Kaylee’s fingers are tangled in Serenity’s wiring, and she bites her bottom lip in concentration. 50 sentences about the crew of Serenity.


**Title: **The Whole Sky's Mine

**Fandom:** Firefly

**Author's Note:** Written for 1fandom, but especially for Hireadd. Better late than never, right?

**Theme Set:** Seventh

**Rating:** R

**Characters: **Almost the whole cast

**01. Focus**

Kaylee's fingers are tangled in _Serenity's _wiring, and she bits her bottom lip in concentration.

**02. Civilization**

Inara carries civilization around on her skin.

**03. Sink**

Simon kissed her, lightly, gently, but his hands betrayed him and sank deep into her hair, winding the soft strands around his fingers, like he'd never let her go.

**04. Bullet**

Kaylee dreams of getting shot– the punch of lead driving through her belly, hard and cold, so cold, and it was the only time she'd feared anything metal.

**05. Count**

"I'm counting Serenity's heartbeat," River told him and when her voice stopped Simon started prepping the defibrillator even before Mal rushed into his infirmary with Kaylee in his arms.

**06. Mental**

Even unconscious River knew the moment the scientist succeeded; her dreams twisted from unholy nightmares into twisted, tangled horrifying images that had implacable, unchangeable meaning behind the madness.

**07. Coast**

"The coast is clear," Mal said and the sheriff and her men opened fire.

**08. Fence**

Inara had an epée blade in her shuttle, and when Mal had driven her to such heights of annoyance that even meditation couldn't calm her down, she brought it out and fenced with the air, slashing with the blade and making the candle flames shudder from the disruption of the air.

**09. Circle**

They seemed to rotate around each other, a set of double stars dancing on the same orbit but never in the same place at the same time.

**10. Thin**

So many things were worn thin on _Serenity;_ they stood as testament to how well the crew loved her.

**11. Room**

As a boy, Mal thought Shadow as a roomy place to live, but nothing compared to the Black.

**12. Blaze**

River dreamed of the sharp prick of needles, of her blood boiling from the drugs, of the excruciating pressure of too many people in her head, of the brilliant blaze of muzzle flash- she craved silence and solitude the way Mal craved freedom.

**13. Thought**

River loved listening to Kaylee's dreams, they were colored confections of happiness and joy and light, and after Early, when they changed to shaky, panic strewn images; River wanted to sweep away the bounty's hunters existence like fallen leaves.

**14. Jealous**

Mal was always touching Kaylee, putting a hand on her shoulder, throwing an arm around her and if he'd behaved that way with anyone else, with Zoë or Inara, Simon would have been fine, but Mal only touched Kaylee with such blatant affection, Kaylee was special to her captain's eyes, and it made Simon's throat tight.

**15. Sand**

On Anubis, the sand was the color of amethysts, and reflected light in a similar way, from the way Kaylee carried on, Mal thought amusedly, you'd think she'd never seen purple before.

**16. Doll**

When she was eight, Kaylee's daddy got her a doll for her birthday– it was_ jing tsai_, had movable parts and everything; she had it disassembled and had figured out how it worked inside of ten minutes.

**17. Curl**

"What did you do to your head?" Mal asked without thinking: Inara was on her way to meet a client and unaccountably her hair was hanging down her back in a ruler straight curtain, not a curl in sight.

**18. Farewell**

It was easier when people just died, Mal thought, then you didn't have to say goodbye, didn't have to smile as they walked off your ship.

**19. Story**

Simon was a Prince out of a fairy tale, and Kaylee was all too aware that she wasn't a Princess, wasn't that kind of girl; Kaylee wasn't very jealous of Inara, but sometimes she wished the Companion could share her elegance the way she shared her wisdom and her brushes.

**20. Soft**

Wash had soft eyes, the kind of eyes Zoe'd forgotten people had, and combined with his loud floral shirts, the man made the back of her neck prickle.

**21. Pool**

Inara walked away from him and the light pooled and gathered in her hair; when she left, she took the brilliance with her.

**22. Serpent**

Jayne never confused Kaylee; for that alone Simon was as wary of the mercenary as he would be a serpent (the apples didn't help either).

**23. Prey**

For most of the bounty hunters that the Alliance sent after the Tams, River was the deadliest prey they never got a glimpse of.

**24. Friend**

Inara brushed Kaylee's hair on her wedding day, and told herself pangs were only natural, and she certainly wasn't jealous; didn't most women feel like crying on wedding days?

**25. Still**

He knew he'd made the right choice when the engine room started smelling of oil (and was it strawberries?) instead of the small still Bester thought he didn't know about.

**26. Exhausted**

In the instant between his nightmares and waking, Mal remembered Serenity Valley, remembered it so totally he believed he was back, and he could feel the dragging, aching exhaustion of the war in the marrow of his bones.

**27. Bold**

He was used to Inara being graceful and coy; how was a man to resist when she put her airs away and stood before him with boldness in her eyes?

**28. Hook**

"Well, that's a possibility," Mal said, hooking his thumbs under his belt; he wondered when they'd going to get annoyed and shoot him (he was still irritated from his last conversation with Inara, and was hoping they're get a move on.)

**29. Attraction**

Kaylee swipes at her face, leaving a smudge of grease behind, staring deep into _Serenity's_ heart, and the expression on her face is one Simon would expect to see in Triage.

**30. Will**

_Serenity _flies for love of Mal and Kaylee, but during a particularly turbulent descent, Simon half-believes the only thing keeping the ship up is his white-kuckled grip on the infirmary's counter.

**31. Bed**

Next time, Inara thought drowsily, they'd have to try this in a bed, before realizing that there wouldn't be a next time.

**32. Bell**

Kaylee's laugh is the most completely joyous sound he had ever heard.

**33. Joy**

Simon doesn't have nightmares about Early shooting him- he dreams about the look on Kaylee's face before they moved him into the infirmary, while his blood was still dripping on to Serenity's deck plating; she'd looked like she'd never smile again.

**34. Decade**

It took a decade of learning before Simon received a caduceus pin and a license to save lives, and he'd felt the weight of that time and the hunger for all the things he didn't know; standing at his graduation, he had no idea how easy it was to throw it all away.

**35. Test**

One of Simon's reoccurring anxiety dreams involved sitting down to a test and discovering his collar was buttoned so tightly he couldn't breath- "well, that's obviously your subconscious telling you that you wear shirts too much," Kaylee said when he told her, and went to work on his buttons.

**36. Gentle**

Brushing the hair away from her face, his hands were so exquisitely antithetical to what she had grown used to that River wanted to cry harder.

**37. Hunger**

When she first entered house Madrassa, Inara was more starved for beauty than she was for food; this was not to say she was unfamiliar with the edges of starvation.

**38. Mute**

Standing in Inara's shuttle after she left, Mal couldn't shake the feeling that something had been forcibly, violently silenced.

**39. Quicken**

Zoë brushed her fingers along her abdomen after she hosteled her rifle and Mal knew.

**40. Absence**

River could feel the absences in herself, could trace their trajectories like falling stars, but even all the king's horses (Serenity) or all the king's men (Simon) couldn't put her back together again.

**41. Maze**

Sometimes Simon's words were a maze to her, and she wished she was the kind of girl (intelligent, elegant, educated) who could walk through what he said without hesitation.

**42. Close**

"Well, that was close," Mal said bemusedly, looking at the bullet hole in his side.

**43. Reign**

Inara was a queen, and she reigned over a court composed of the senses– Mal hated when her perfume slipped into the ventilation system; one whiff of spice and smoke and he'd lose track of what he was doing, caught by the visceral fantasy of what she'd taste like (he never quite dared accuse her of adding drugs to her scents).

**44. Crush**

The pressure in space was 1.322 x 10 to the negative 11th Pascals (essentially zero pressure and enough to pull a body apart) but to River the black had the gentlest touch, as smooth and soft as Simon's hands or Inara's silks.

**45. Run**

It was supposed to be a milk run, simple, easy, profitable: "Just like always, sir," Zoë commented.

**46. Art**

Every summer, Simon's mother had taken her children to Osiris' Museum of Modern And Classical Art– it had progressed to the point that Simon had the guides' speech memorized; as an adult he discovered none of it, not even the paintings he loved, were anywhere as beautiful as Kaylee's smile.

**47. Pressure**

Buying Kaylee fruit felt suspiciously like buying a present for himself; she placed a raspberry in her mouth and closed her eyes in rapture as Simon shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

**48. Echo**

Drowsy and half-asleep, Simon rested his head on her shoulder and heard her heartbeat as an echo of _Serenity's_ engines.

**49. Heal**

First, Do No Harm: up until he left Osiris, Simon had felt that Hypocrites set his sights too low.

**50. Clear**

When Kaylee was happy, she was happy with her whole being, all the way down to her soul, and Simon felt privileged to see so far inside her.

**Notes:** "Jing tsai" means "brilliant" and "splendid."


End file.
